The rite way

This week's blog post has been written by Associate Chaplain, Geoffrey Baines.

This is a simple encouragement to wrap whatever you find that you must do into a ritual and keep on going.

And if there is any way I can help, let me know.

I posted my three thousandth blog and doodle for Thin|Silence today.  In 2014, I’d set out to post a blog and doodle every day for a year.

By the end of the year, I realised that I hadn’t made myself a habit, but I’d formed a ritual, as Ryan Holiday more recently summed up for me:

Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine.  It becomes ritual - it becomes sanctified and holy.*

I understand what mythologist Joseph Campbell meant when he wrote:

A ritual is an enactment of a myth.  By participating in a ritual, you are participating in a myth.**

Our rituals are where we give expression to our stories about what it is we feel we must bring into the world for the sake of others - many of the thoughts I’m exploring feed into my dreamwhispering work, available to anyone in the university.

I’ve included some of my favourite doodles since the beginning of this year, and whilst these all start life accompanying a body of text, these are possibly able to stand alone.

I’d love to hear about the things you must do.

*From Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key;

**From Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.